When you forget who you are.....

...there always someone there to remind you.

"You fucking bitch, watch where you're going!!"

Thank you small, bald man in the BMW. Thank you for your intelligent expletives in this moment of of our paths nearly crossing, in this moment of my most recent traffic transgression. Thank you. You'll never know how your small, round head glowng red with rage was so like a beacon to me, NO - like a lighthouse. Yeah, a lighthouse...calling me back to harbour.

At first, there was just this primal urge to retaliate, to defend myself. My hand went up, my fist closed, it pressed against the window...but then that special finger stayed where it was. And I swallowed the words whole. I smiled my most winniest of smiles and I let them swim down into this place of deeper knowing...and there it was - I AM a bitch. No, I am a FUCKING bitch. Sweet.

Not that being a bitch is any special talent. But getting a backbone is. And, in times of great need, it's the same thing. It's the thing I put to bed as the rest of me climbs between the sheets....as my most secret thoughts fornicate in the darkness, giving birth to monsters feeding on my alcohol soaked brain....laying there as they play spin doctor for what we really are. As I've done for the last four years. Four years?! Really. Ach! Oh - don't get me wrong, friends, I've had many great loves in between. But it's always back to this one. This one. The One? Holding on until the next 2 am text message. Sometimes I start it up. Sometimes you do. And I will never say no. Helpless to deny you. (Backbone. Bitch. Backbone) Always worried about you and how your travels through this life are going. Wanting to give a moment of comfort. Love? Quiet? Ecstacy? Take a moment of all of the above? I don't know anymore. Does it matter? The delivery system for this tonic is physical, furtive...ever since the river between us has filled to overflowing. It's too deep to just step across anymore. So every weekend our bodies build a rickety bridge that neither of us has the courage to cross. Or tear down.

I want you to go away. I want you to stay. I want you to show up at my doorstep and fall on your knees. I want you to take me out for a coffee in the daylight and ask me what I think about wearing red socks with brown pants. About the price of tomatoes in winter. About An Inconvenient Truth. You're an inconvenient truth, my love.....and I'm a fucking bitch.

Where's the middle ground in that?

It All Lasts Forever

Alice said many things...that's my grandmother. She was always full of great advice and little bits of wit that took an especially astute translator to decipher. I think it's the latter that I look back on now and love the most about her. It's the things that take time to sink in that tend to stick. She died with two dresses in her closet and a church filled with people I had never met. All of these people that were touched by her existence. So this is my first blog - dedicated to Alice and her many words of wisdom that I was too young to understand.....

The sole purpose of this blog is to uncover the truth of our existence. Here's the first step:

It all lasts forever.

That's the first little nugget of gold. Take from it what you will. For me, as an adult now, it means that all that you create lasts forever. Words, feelings, art, music - any piece of yourself that you throw into the fodder continues to exist ad infinum. This, to me, is relevant b/c I think that so many of us feel a complete disconnect from everything else...hence the need to blog...to be heard. I'm not blogging b/c I need to be heard. I'm blogging b/c I need you to know that I hear you. Some existential bullshit I feel compelled to fufill.....

I was talking with a musician friend of mine a few months ago and he said he loved to create music because it was entirely disposable. I balked. Music, my friends, is the last frontier of memory. Think of any memory you have - it exists inside some sort of theme music. Whether it be "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" as you sat in the bathtub screaming for your mother as your brother taunted you with his enourmous (yet fascniating) feces jammed in his fist. Or some especially raunchy night half-stripping to "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails (you know you did it too)....music solidifies memory.

And music is but one outlet to remember the touchstones in our life.

Anyway - All of it lasts forever. I suppose what you really want is to know what all of this means for you. Well, I've got the answer for that. While music was the theme for tonight, it only starts there. And the truth is, you're just going to have to figure it out for yourself. Just know that everything you do matters. It all lasts forever. Daunting, but true. Glorious, but true.

Sweet night.